9789381017159
Distributed for Zubaan Books
Spectacles of Blood
A Study of Masculinity and Violence in Postcolonial Films
This superb collection of essays illuminates the film portrayal of violence, masculinity, and power in a postcolonial context, showing how the cinema challenges, normalizes, or contests these major issues. Taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, drawing from literature, sociology, and media studies, the essays shed light on films about societal violence in postcolonial cultures, whether it be terrorism, suicide bombings, the underworld, organized crime, or mob violence.
The contributors to Spectacles of Blood look at the dynamics of the representation of these issues as cinematic plots and techniques, drawing attention to the affective value of the films in generating and foregrounding the feelings invoked by the onscreen violence, and the impact of these emotions on the formation of national and cosmopolitan identity. International in scope, covering films from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, these essays enrich both literary studies and social studies with a nuanced borrowing and intermixing of their primary texts and modes of interpretation.
The contributors to Spectacles of Blood look at the dynamics of the representation of these issues as cinematic plots and techniques, drawing attention to the affective value of the films in generating and foregrounding the feelings invoked by the onscreen violence, and the impact of these emotions on the formation of national and cosmopolitan identity. International in scope, covering films from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, these essays enrich both literary studies and social studies with a nuanced borrowing and intermixing of their primary texts and modes of interpretation.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Preface: Insurgent Cameras and Postcolonial Squibs
Jigna Desai
2. Introduction: Violence, Cinema and the Postcolonial Masculine
Swaralipi Nandi and Esha Chatterjee
3. ‘We’re Just Having a Peaceful Rally’: Bloody Sunday and the Modern Irish Postcolonial Film
Brian Cogan
4. Visualising National Reconciliation after the Algerian Civil War: Violence, Gender and ‘Virtual Justice’ in Film
Jacob Mundy
5. Assessing the Moral Landscape: Postcolonial Violence in Australian Films
Peter Mathews
6. Blood Masculinities: Men’s Violences in Ghanaian Videofilms
Wisdom Agorde
7. Becoming a Gwo Nèg in 1970s Haiti: Dany Laferrièr’s Coming-of-Age Film Le Goût des Jeunes Filles (On the Verge of Fever)
Lee Skallerup Bessette
8. Blood on the Screen in Tran Anh Hung’s Cyclo (1995), and the Cinematic Poetics of Masculinity, Violence and Urban Decay
Hanh Nguyen and R. C. Lutz
9. Digging the Underworld Narrative: Revisiting Masculinity in Indian Films
Sayantani Satpathi and Samiparna Samanta
10. Lexicons of Postcolonialism in Gangsters (BBC, 1975–78)
Mark Duguid and Eleni Liarou
11. Slumdog Millionaire’s Aesthetic Controversy: Stylistic Violence against Masculinity
Laurent Mellet
12. Blood in the Spotlight: Revealing Religious Fanaticism in Mani Ratnam’s Bombay
Joya Uraizee
About the Editors and Contributors